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World Autism Day (April 2nd)
2009-Apr-02, Thursday 08:45 pmI'm late (what's new?) posting this, but in 2008 (sorry, not last year as I first thought) the United Nations voted to make April 2nd of each year a day for international autism awareness.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/gashc3899.doc.htm
While early diagnosis is useful in getting children into special (and enormously expensive) training sessions, there is still a lot that needs to change in how society approaches the topic of autism and also its therapy. Even though I did the stereotypical "loss of speech" thing at age 3 (according to what I overheard my mother say to someone else, many years later), I was not diagnosed as a child. My experience of useful life skills and lessons learned is limited mostly to adulthood. That, too, is the age group of people that I work with while organizing the annual NoLAR conference.
As far as the U.S. government is concerned, it seems that people stop being autistic as soon as they're 18 or 21. That idea needs to change. One good place to learn about autism-across-the-lifespan is a site from England.
http://www.think-differently.org.uk/
Some people are a lot more confrontational about it. I dunno, maybe that has its uses too. (Anyone remember ACT-UP?) Here are three images from one blogger who made up posters to point out some of the flaws of "Autism Awareness" campaigns.
http://aspergersquare8.blogspot.com/2009/03/autism-awareness-month-posters.html
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/gashc3899.doc.htm
While early diagnosis is useful in getting children into special (and enormously expensive) training sessions, there is still a lot that needs to change in how society approaches the topic of autism and also its therapy. Even though I did the stereotypical "loss of speech" thing at age 3 (according to what I overheard my mother say to someone else, many years later), I was not diagnosed as a child. My experience of useful life skills and lessons learned is limited mostly to adulthood. That, too, is the age group of people that I work with while organizing the annual NoLAR conference.
As far as the U.S. government is concerned, it seems that people stop being autistic as soon as they're 18 or 21. That idea needs to change. One good place to learn about autism-across-the-lifespan is a site from England.
http://www.think-differently.org.uk/
Some people are a lot more confrontational about it. I dunno, maybe that has its uses too. (Anyone remember ACT-UP?) Here are three images from one blogger who made up posters to point out some of the flaws of "Autism Awareness" campaigns.
http://aspergersquare8.blogspot.com/2009/03/autism-awareness-month-posters.html